Barriers To Love
by Moving Mountains
Summary: She loves him. He loves her. It should be simple, but the most amazing things in life never are.  BBxRae  RobxRae friendship


**Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans... unfortunately. Please enjoy this story!**

* * *

_The machines in the infirmary were beeping so loud that Beast Boy couldn't take it. Of course he was delighted that they indicated Raven was alive but it still reminded him that she was injured and why she was lying unconscious in a medical gown in the first place. He sighed deeply and stroked Raven's limp hand, knowing that if she were conscious he would probably be a dead man by now for making the contact._

_Beast Boy immediately dropped the empath's hand the moment he heard the door to the infirmary open. Robin strolled in and took the seat on the other side of Raven. "How's she doing?" he asked the shape-shifter who had been keeping watch over their teammate for the last hour or two. Beast Boy sighed deeply, the depressing noise not going unnoticed by the observant leader._

"_She's okay. There have been no problems so far but I still wish she would wake up." _

_Robin nodded and looked down at the girl in question. She looked extremely peaceful, although paler than usual but the rise and fall of her chest comforted the Boy Wonder. He knew she would be okay in a matter of days but she had been hit hard by Cinderblock. _

_The behemoth had been aiming for Beast Boy who had been hit moments before and was helpless on the ground. Cinderblock was about to swipe him aside like a fly on a windshield when Raven dived towards them, knocking Beast Boy sideways and out of harms away. Unfortunately, Cinderblock's heavy hands smashed against her ribcage and sent her flying into a nearby building. The remaining Titans were shocked and stood in silence for a moment, waiting for the strong Demoness to get up from the rubble that surrounded her. When they realised that she was down for the count, Beast Boy yelled for the others to help her whilst he used his new found anger and fear to fuel a furious attack against the villain. Beast Boy had taken him down in no time and once the police had loaded him in the car to drive back to the maximum security prison he ran in the direction of his teammates. Only Robin remained._

"_Is she alright?" he asked as he approached the lone Titan. Robin shook his head._

_"She's unconscious and Cyborg won't know more until he examines her. Starfire flew her back to the tower and he's getting the T-Car. Are you okay?" the leader asked. Beast Boy nodded and started pacing back and forth in impatience. He had to see for himself that she was okay and would not be satisfied until he saw her beautiful violet orbs staring into his emerald eyes and heard her make a sarcastic comment. _

_The T-Car sped towards them and Robin and Beast Boy jumped in. Cyborg raced back to the Tower at breakneck speeds, having got permission from the police to speed because it was an emergency._

_It had been two hours since then and Cyborg had concluded that she would be out of commission for a while. Cinderblock had broken five of her ribs when he'd hit her, and the team knew from previous experience that Raven could not heal broken bones completely but reduce them to fractures which would still take a few weeks to heal. Her chest and stomach were badly bruised, the browns and purples contrasting noticeably against her grey skin, and Cyborg reckoned that she would have a hell of a headache , thanks to the brick work of the building she'd hit. Luckily she was alive and all these injuries were temporary, but Robin too would not be satisfied until she was awake._

_Beast Boy had resumed stroking Raven's soft hand with his thumb, probably subconsciously to comfort himself as well as the girl of his affections. Robin watched the contact and smiled._

"_You really love her, don't you." Robin spoke, getting Beast Boy's attention. The changeling knew that it was a declarative as opposed to a question, and consequently recognised that it was pointless to argue and hide his feelings from his leader. _

"_I've loved her every day since we first met Rob, since I first looked into her gorgeous eyes. It's a shame that it took something like this to make me realise it." _

_Robin smiled at his friend's confession. He'd always had his suspicions that Beast Boy harboured feelings more than friendship for the resident sorceress. He noticed that the former would always go out of his way to make the latter feel included in group activities. He was always there trying the make her laugh, and whenever they were battling a villain Beast Boy's eyes would search for Raven and make sure she was okay, even when she was clearly holding her own just fine. Even though Raven was less obvious, it was clear that she also had feelings for Beast Boy. She was just afraid, and stubborn enough to not admit it. _

"_I mean, she's just so smart, and calm, and beautiful. Man, I've never seen a girl so beautiful in my life! Sure, it's annoying when she locks herself away and it hurts when she's mean to me but I would rather hear those rude, sarcastic insults any day than to not hear them at all."_

"_Have you ever thought about telling her how you feel?" Robin asked, leaning back in his chair. _

"_Dude! As if she'd ever date a guy like me. I'm just BB to her. Her annoying, prankster little brother and pain-in-the-neck teammate! Her words, not mine."_

"_B, she said that years ago! You've both grown up a lot since then and things may have changed. You'll never know unless you tell her you love her."_

"_Seriously Robin, do you really think she'd let me live long enough to let me tell her! You know what she's like."_

"_Yes, I do. I know that she always has a little smile on her face after you tell her an awful joke because you've made the effort to try to make her laugh. I also know that after Terra betrayed us she tried her damned hardest to cheer you up again. I can't speak for her, but I reckon you have as good a chance as any guy of winning her heart." he smiled, reaching over and gripping Beast Boy's shoulder. "What have you got to lose?"_

"_You mean besides my lower limbs?" Both boys laughed and Robin released his shoulder._

"_I'll tell her when the time is right. I want to make sure its love first because I don't want to hurt her. Like Malchior did." He whispered the last part of the sentence._

"_You would never hurt her. You know why?" Beast Boy looked up puzzlingly at Robin's question._

"_Because if you ever did, you'd have Cyborg and I to answer to. And trust me, neither of us would go easy on you just because you're a friend."_

_Robin looked so serious that Beast Boy didn't have a shadow of doubt that the words were true. Beast Boy nodded, and Robin let out a small laugh and shook his head as he got up from the chair. "Call me when she wakes up, and try and get some sleep." Beast Boy nodded and watched Robin leave the room. When he was alone with his princess, he lovingly kissed her hand and continued to watch over her knowing that he would not sleep until she was awake._

_

* * *

_Robin laughed at the memory from two weeks ago as he bought over two steaming mugs of tea and coffee for them both. "Come on Rae, we both know you love the little grass stain so drop the act."

"What act?" she asked, taking a sip from the mug he offered her. The tea was made exactly to her taste and she smiled as the hot liquid coursed down her throat and then winced slightly when it burned against her ribs.

"The one where you pretend that you don't care about Beast Boy when the reality is that you care for him probably more than the rest of us put together. Although I do admit, you have a hell of a poker face." he smirked, taking a sip of his own drink. They were both silent for a long while as they digested each other's words. For once, it was the dark empath who shattered the silence first.

"Even if I did have feelings for him, which I'm not saying I do!-" she added when she saw him smirk, "-there is nothing I could do about it."

"You know, you're the last person I thought would give up without even trying Raven." She looked at him, confused. "If you're worried about compromising missions, well Star and I have managed just fine and we've been together publicly for a year now."

"Robin..."

"Or if you're worried he doesn't feel the same way, well you know that's stupid because he goes out of his way to get close to you."

"Robin."

"And he..."

"ROBIN!"

The Boy Wonder finally stopped his ranted reasoning and listened to his friend, who suddenly looked more sullen than before. It took her a moment to think about how to phrase what she was about to tell Robin, who was patiently waiting for her to initiate conversation.

"There is nothing I can do about it because my planet has strict rules on courtship and the relationships of its citizens."

Robin was a bit taken aback by this. Himself and Raven were very close and often had meaningful conversations late at night when neither of them could sleep after a particularly hard mission, and they would work together on unsolved cases, but rarely did they speak to each other about their pasts. He knew enough about her life before she became a heroine because of the Trigon incident five years ago but never before had he thought to question her on her home life.

Raven lowered her head and said the next part so quietly that Robin strained to hear her. "Azarathians must only court other Azarathians. And we are required to only be courted by one male, and that male is the one we shall marry. I cannot have feelings for Beast Boy because he would get hurt. He would be killed for attempting to court me because he is not Azarathian. I could not knowingly put his life at risk. I would rather die."

Acting on instinct, Robin pulled Raven into a one-armed hug. "I never knew that."

"Why would you?"

"Touché. But seriously, is there nothing you can do about this? No loopholes?"

"I wish there were, really I do. I grew up under the tuition of the Monks for many years and they would make me study the laws about courtship and marriage until I could recite them word-perfect. I remember once when I was seven and one of the Monks saw me holding hands with a boy. They locked me away for two days to pray for redemption for my 'sin'."

Robin was utterly speechless after hearing this revelation, knowing that members of the Temple would do that to a young child who knew no better, and was not even doing anything wrong in the first place. However, as much as it disturbed him, hearing about Raven's childhood sparked an interest in him.

"Of course, on this planet I have touched many men in non-affectionate ways. And of course at one point I did fall in love with another man-" Robin squeezed Raven's shoulder when she mentioned Malchior, knowing it was always a sensitive topic for her to discuss. "-and I was not punished by my people for loving the one I was not going to marry. But lightening doesn't strike in the same place twice and I don't think the Higher Priest's will be so lenient this time. Beast Boy is a human from Earth, at least Malchior was a wizard."

"Could you not ask your people to make an exception?"

"If I wanted to walk to my own grave Robin, I'd at least do so for a cause I actually believe in!"

"Huh?"

"In Azarath, once a woman is married she is enslaved by that man."

Robin was shocked once again. The more he heard about Raven's home culture, the more he was glad she had come to Earth, even though it was against her will. He could never imagine a woman as strong-willed an independent as the one he was holding ever having to serve a man on unequal ground. The thought sickened him.

"No offence Raven, but your people need to realise this is the twenty-first century."

"Women are opposed on this planet too Robin, even to this day. Infact, my people introduced new laws so that women aren't abused by the men they marry. Before, women were forced into arranged marriages in order to preserve our race and they were often sold to the highest bidder. Emotions were not taken into account and neither were the women's well being. Many women were raped on a regular basis to produce children, including my mother, and the men they were married to did not love their wives. Women committed the ultimate sin of suicide just to get away from their dreadful lives and the men who hurt them. Only twenty years ago, just after I was born did the High Priest's realise what was happening and they introduced the law that you must love and only love one man in this life, and that man is the one you will marry."

"Your mother was raped by Trigon?" Robin asked after a moment of silent, when all the information he heard had sunk in. Raven only nodded in reply.

"Oh wow Raven, I had no idea-"

"Please don't." She interrupted, shrugging away the arm that was still poised around her shoulders. "I don't need your pity, nor do I want it. Luckily when I do choose the man I love life won't be as bad on Azarath as it was for my mother."

"Why can't that man you choose be Beast Boy?"

"I told you, he'd be killed!"

"Then get married on Earth, under our laws. That way, you won't lose your freedom and you can marry the one you love."

"I wish it were that easy, but it would be disrespectful to my race to not get married on Azarath. The fact I aided its destruction in the first place was bad enough, but to marry on Earth, its unheard of!"

"So, its a lose-lose situation? If you marry here you would be shunned by your people, and if you marry on Azarath you would have to marry someone other than BB?"

"Exactly, except if I did marry here I wouldn't be shunned, both BB and I would be killed."

Robin went silent and his eyes shaped themselves into angered slits beneath his mask. Raven decided that would be a good time to refill their drinks with hot coffee. She removed herself from the sofa and ventured to the nearby kitchen.

"I don't know why we're even talking about this. I never said I love Beast Boy. He would never take me on a date, let alone marry me, so why bother recognising possibilities that will never come to pass?" She sighed, leaning against the worktop as the kettle started to boil.

"You know better than all of us that he has deep feelings for you, and either you are extremely ignorant, which we both know you're not, or you're afraid, which we both know you are. I'm sorry that your heritage has such strict laws about this, because you would both be perfect together, more so than you realise Raven." Robin walked up to the counter and took the kettle off the hob and poured the boiling water into the two empty mugs on the side. Raven has been too pre-occupied in her own thoughts to hear the kettle whistling."I'm going to go and drink this in my room, but if you ever want to talk more about this, you know where to find me." She nodded in thanks, and watched him leave the room. It was just her, a steaming mug of herbal tea, and a whole load of thoughts running around chaotically in her head.

* * *

The next morning, Beast Boy awoke to a knocking at his door. He glanced at his alarm clock. It was seven in the morning, way too early for his taste.

"What the hell Dude, you never mentioned a training session this early?" He half groaned/half shouted at his locked bedroom door, thinking it was Robin or Cyborg standing on the other side. He was surprised to hear a soft, stoic whisper instead of a deep, masculine voice.

"It's me, can we talk?"

"Uhhhh, just one sec, I need to get decent."

Beast Boy, who slept naked, quickly threw on some jogging bottoms and then proceeded to attempt cleaning his room. Well, his version of cleaning, as in throwing everything on his floor under his bed and into his closet.

"You don't need to clean up for me Beast Boy, I've seen your room in a worse state."

He had been so busy stacking up his old pizza boxes that he hadn't realised that Raven had let herself in. "Hehehe, I just wanted it to look a bit nicer." He said, taking a seat next to Raven, who had sat down on the bottom bunk bed.

"Beast Boy, I have to tell you something important so please don't interrupt me."

"Go ahead Rae, I'm all ears." At that, he transformed himself into an elephant calf and waved his giant ears around. Raven couldn't help but smile at the cute creature next to her.

"Can't you take anything seriously?" she asked, trying to sound stern despite the fact that she was scratching the elephant's head. Beast Boy chose that moment to turn back into his human counterpart.

"Ok, seriously, shoot Rae."

Raven inhaled deeply, choosing to look down at her own lap rather than into Beast Boy's gorgeous, green eyes. "Beast Boy, I love you."

This was the moment he had been dreaming of for the last few years, the one sentence he longed would be spoken from her rounded lips to him. He could hardly believe that this whole time, the one he loved had loved him in return. He sat there, speechless, grabbing both her hands and intertwining his fingers within hers.

"I love you too Raven, with all my heart."

"But, I can't love you. I just wanted you to know that I return your feelings"

"...What?"

"Azarathians can not under any circumstances marry another race. I have to love one man, and marry that one man, and die loving that one man. And that man has to be Azarathian, which you're not."

"...What?"

"If I do love you, we could both be killed. And I can't do that to you Garfield! I love you too much to let you die!"

"...So you do love me?"

"Yes! I mean, I can't but..."

"Raven, slow down."

She took a deep breath and began to speak when the shape-shifter took that opportunity to speak his mind. "I've loved you for years, since the moment we first met. Not a day goes by when I don't think about you, worry about you, try to make you happy. And just to hear you say that you have feelings for me, even if they are forbidden means more to me that you could ever comprehend!" He lifted their intertwined hands, and kissed the top of them.

"But, we could never go any further, or be together, or-"

"Raven, we could take it slow. Just date first, not rush. Then we can sort out any issues later on. I just want to enjoy being in your company."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"But, you could be killed, and I couldn't live with myself if-"

"Raven, we're superheroes for Christ's sake! We could be killed the moment we leave for any mission. I would risk my life for you when we fight, and I wouldn't hesitate to risk my life if it meant I got to kiss you before we go to sleep, or to hold your hand when watching a movie. That's what people in love do."

They both smiled, and leaned in slowly, finally putting their lips together and enjoying their first, and hopefully not their last kiss.


End file.
